Why Letting Clients Pause Their Job Search This Summer Can Set Them Back

Each summer, a familiar pattern emerges among job seekers. Clients begin to ease off their job search. Routines shift, vacations take priority, and the urgency that carried them through the spring starts to soften. It’s common to hear, “I’m taking time off and will pick this back up in September.”

For us career development professionals, this creates an opportunity for balance, and integrating what’s important in life, away from a job search. Summer often brings competing priorities, and we need to acknowledge and support this reality. Clients may be managing family responsibilities, travel, or simply a need to recharge after an energetically (and emotionally) demanding job search, taking time away from this noisy job market. However, a complete pause in activity can slowly erode the very momentum they’ve worked hard to build.

The goal is not to push clients to maintain peak intensity or deny their need for rest. Rather, it is to help them stay engaged in a way that is both manageable and strategic.

The Myth of the Summer Slowdown

There is a widely held belief that hiring grinds to a halt during the summer months. I’ve been coaching for nearly 11 years now, and I’ve heard this myth expressed by clients every single year since I started. While it is true that some organizations operate at a different pace (often due to vacations, reduced staffing, or shifting priorities), hiring does not stop altogether. Roles continue to be posted. Interviews still take place. Teams move forward with filling critical needs and preparing for the months ahead. The job market does not close, so neither should a job search.

The more significant shift often occurs on the job seeker side. As market activity slows, many individuals disengage entirely from their search, and this creates a gap – not in opportunity, but in visibility and responsiveness.

Clients who remain even lightly engaged over the holiday months continue to see postings, respond to opportunities, and stay present in their professional networks. By contrast, those who step away completely in July and August may miss key openings or find themselves out of sync when they attempt to re-enter the process. I experience something similar with my morning runs – if I’m fighting a cold and I stay away from running altogether for weeks at a time, it’s far more challenging to get back into the routine again when I’m healthy.

Reframing Summer as a Strategic Opportunity

For CDPs, one of the most valuable interventions is helping clients reframe their view of the summer period. Rather than seeing it as a time when “nothing happens,” it can be positioned as a different kind of opportunity – one that is particularly well-suited for relationship-building.

In the summer, schedules may be more flexible, and meeting frequency and volume may be lighter. Network contacts can be more open to informal conversations that might be difficult to schedule at other times of the year.

This makes summer an ideal time for informational interviews, reconnecting with past colleagues, and reaching out to contacts within target organizations. While these conversations may not lead to immediate job offers, they are instrumental in building relationships that could lead to future opportunities. In many cases, the conversations that take place in July and August lead directly to interviews and referrals in the fall.

The Hidden Cost of a Full Pause

When clients step away from their job search entirely, the impact is often more significant than anticipated. A full pause can disrupt routines, reduce confidence, and weaken the sense of forward progress. Over time, this can make it more difficult to restart, both practically and psychologically. Clients may need to rebuild structure, regain motivation, and re-establish their professional presence. For clients who have been on a long, tough job search up to this point, getting back into a routine may be particularly challenging and even discouraging.

Meanwhile, those who have maintained even a minimal level of engagement have preserved their momentum. They have continued conversations, stayed visible to their networks, and remained connected to the flow of opportunities.

Helping clients understand this distinction is key. It is not the intensity or volume of effort that matters most – it’s the continuity.

Encouraging “Light Touch” Engagement

One of the most effective ways to support clients through a summer job search is by introducing the concept of “light touches”; small, consistent actions rather than sustained, high-intensity effort. It allows clients to maintain progress without feeling overwhelmed or sacrificing their ability to enjoy the season (and who doesn’t want to enjoy bike rides or time on the dock throughout these months!)

Here are some ideas for “light touches” you can introduce to your clients:

• Carve out blocks of limited time to continue with job search activities – even a minimal investment, like one hour a few times per week – can keep momentum alive. Better yet, introduce some structure to “hold” this commitment, like booking it over the phone as an appointment. The rest of the time: time for you, for family and friends, or other activities that feed your soul.
• Review job alerts and company websites periodically to stay aware of new opportunities
• Reach out to a contact at a company of interest for a brief conversation
• Maintain a presence on LinkedIn by leaving a few thoughtful comments per week
• Check in with recruiters or introduce to new ones
• Follow up on existing applications and interviews

These actions require relatively little time, but they play an important role in keeping the job search active and visible.

Helpful Resources

Helpful and supportive resources, which include action items that clients can take to keep a job search moving forward, include:

Insider Secrets from Career Pros: A Guide For Your Career Development, authored by CPC members Daisy Wright and Maureen McCann.

 All The Cool Girls Get Fired by Laura Brown and Kristina O’Neill.

And my book, Cultivating Career Growth: Navigating Transitions with Purpose.

Maintaining Forward Motion

At its core, a successful job search is built on consistency. As we know, opportunities rarely emerge from a single action. Instead, they are the result of cumulative effort: a message that leads to a conversation, a conversation that leads to a referral, and a referral that leads to an interview.

When clients disengage entirely, these chains of connection are interrupted. When they remain lightly engaged, those connections continue to develop and expand. By reframing summer as a time for strategic, low-intensity engagement, we can help clients maintain their momentum and position themselves for success in the months ahead, while still honouring activities that clients want to do for themselves, so they can enjoy the riches that summer has to offer.

In a job search, it is not the bursts of effort that make the difference – it’s the ability to keep moving forward, even in small ways, that matters.

– By Michelle Schafer –

Photo by Ylanite Koppens on Pexels.

Written in collaboration with ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, based on the author’s original ideas. Image generated using ChatGPT.